How Is Your Digital Marketing Plan Shaping Up for 2022?
February 17, 2022
Who wouldn’t like to cut costs when building a new website? Using one of the countless free or cheap templates currently available sure can be tempting, but is that really the best solution? In most cases, the answer is no. There are numerous reasons to invest in a truly unique design for your website.
When a template is used, it isn’t always possible to create a unique site that’s tailored to your customers. Customized sites, on the other hand, allow the use of the fonts, colors, and other design elements necessary to boost brand recognition and stand out from the crowd. When you’re looking for ways to increase market penetration, customized designs make it easier to include impactful graphics and calls to action.
Arguably, the most important reason to avoid the one-size-fits-all templates flooding the internet, is that your business is one-of-a-kind and deserves special attention. Those free or cheap templates simply do not allow the level of personalization a fully customized design offers. Rather than risk having your site look all too much like a competitor’s, contact an expert at iKonix Studios to get your custom design started today.
The majority of owners look forward to growing their businesses in the future. That suggests their websites will also have to evolve to meet changing needs. Templates rarely have the ability to evolve as a company grows. While there may be some flexibility to make changes or add a limited number of pages, there are few templates that have the capacity to meet a growing business’s long-term needs.
Growth-driven design allows a design team to deliver a website that’s ready to change as needed to keep pace with your company’s expansion. The design is created to measure your site’s results and evolve as needed to meet the needs of your business plan as well as your customers’ needs.
The algorithms used by search engines are designed to spot sloppy coding and penalize sites that include poor coding. When online templates are used, poor coding is all too common. Why should you care?
Poor coding routinely causes performance issues. Coding issues may make your site respond slowly or incorrectly. That drives site visitors to your competitors quickly, and those visitors are unlikely to give your site another chance. That means your profits suffer not only today, but in the future as well. When a site is custom-built to meet your company’s needs, the coding will be clean. Customers won’t be frustrated by an unresponsive site that functions slowly or not at all.
Research has consistently shown that consumers respond positively to quality graphics. If your site is limited to the same graphics as countless other sites, it will lack the competitive edge needed to attract and retain customers.
The visual content on any site must match its text. That objective is difficult to attain if your site is limited by the quality and quantity of graphics included with the template package. To enhance a company brand, a site must be able to take advantage of custom graphics developed with that unique site’s needs in mind.
In other words, don’t hold back your site by limiting its potential use of customized materials of all kinds. When design experts build your company’s site, the coding and metadata will be optimized for your content, not someone else’s.
Another major issue with using templates is a lack of aftercare. Many online templates offer no aftercare with others proving only limited options. That further limits the ability to customize those templates. Even though there are plugins available that prove some flexibility, you’re once again faced with potential coding issues.
Customized website solutions make updating or revising the site easy. Customers appreciate a quality experience and you’ll be better able optimize the site. Google and the other search engines do notice, which means your site is more likely to outrank the competitors.
Templates tend to remain static, and what appears to be a somewhat creatively designed template might well be dated and unable to function properly on all platforms. Today, a failure to adapt a website for use by smartphone and tablets can spell doom for a site.
Almost sixty percent of searches are now from mobile devices, and that percentage is growing. Recent industry statistics suggest that roughly 90 percent of websites are not optimized for mobile devices. That means, if your company’s site is included in that 90 percent, you’re ceding business to someone else. Few mobile device users will stay on a site that’s not mobile-friendly.
Google also responds harshly when a website is not mobile-friendly. Sites not optimized for mobile devices are seeing their rankings drop precipitously. That fact alone should concern anyone contemplating using a generic template not proven to be mobile-friendly.
Today’s website design experts understand the importance of responsive web design. Responsive web design employs coding that will instantly resize a website to make the information available to any user regardless of the device they’re using.
In addition, the web design landscape is evolving rapidly as users are finding and using new ways to shop for goods and services. Your web site must be designed to adapt quickly to users’ demands. That’s unlikely to be possible when templates are used.
In the vast majority of instances, a cheap template will not enhance an organization’s brand. Your company brand will depend on more than the organization’s name. All aspects of a sites design are important for developing and maintaining a brand.
A standard template limits the potential to create the image you want to convey. The site will be limited in its ability to push your message to visitors. The format is predetermined and generally can’t be expanded to meet a specific company’s needs.
Using iKonix Studios eliminates the issue, as our professionals craft a site to carefully project the image needed develop your company’s image. While using our experienced team will certainly cost more initially than using a cheap template, a customized site will generate far greater returns over time.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is always an issue, and basic low-cost templates just don’t deliver the performance your website needs. The point of SEO is to generate more traffic for a website, so it pays to design and use a site that fully optimized.
In addition to a quality design, a website must include content selected to provide a genuine advantage for users. Today, that means including graphics and other video content that is both interesting and informative.
However, most budget-oriented templates don’t provide features that allow graphics or other video content to perform as well as they should. Site visitors expect all content to load quickly and, when that doesn’t happen, they quickly migrate to a competing site.
Since they are one-size-fits-all options, templates generally include a lot of data you will never use. That data sitting in the background can easily create performance issues. Again, when a site is cluttered and slow to load, site visitors are not going to wait. Your competitors will reap the benefits.
Customized websites contain only the coding your site needs to perform properly and effectively. It won’t take long for the results to be obvious, and your bottom line will certainly benefit.
Online marketing has evolved rapidly in the past few years, and the future is certainly going to look different as well. Design teams are always looking for new and innovative ways to keep a site viable well into the future. Modern websites have to be flexible to respond quickly as industry changes occur.
If you’re tied to a static template that can’t easily be altered, there is no real way to update the site quickly. In addition, many templates are unlikely to be workable in the face of rapid changes. That means it might well be necessary to start the building process all over again. In that event, a great deal of business might be in jeopardy while a site is down.
Rather than taking that type of risk, take the time now to contact our website design professionals to discuss your current and anticipated needs. Our team develops relationships with clients that benefit everyone involved.
If problems develop as the search engines change their algorithms, iKonix Studios will be there to resolve any issues quickly. That fast response can easily make a significant difference when your company relies on a website to survive.
Stock templates may seem like a good choice on the surface but, when all the pros and cons are carefully considered, it becomes obvious opting for a high-quality, fully customized website is a better option. Yes, the initial investment will be higher, but the results always justify the expense. To get started, take the time now to contact one of our web design professionals today.
© Copyright 2021-2025. iKonix Studios LLC. All Rights Reserved.